Welcome to New Member

NBCG enthusiastically welcomed new faculty member - Dr. Qian Hu. Mulcahy gave a brief but substantive
overview of the role and function of NBCG as an introduction to Qiang who will be working with collection
development in the subject areas of Chemistry and Physics.

Chair's Report

Mulcahy presented current status of the NB collection funds, reviewed the approval plan trends, included data
for approximately eleven years to present an overall picture of state as well as non-state funds.
NBCG would like to contribute towards the memorial planned for Janet Howard at TAS.

Team Leader Reports

Announcement: Selectors should send in any "Electronic Reference" titles since there are one-time funds
available.

Science team leader reported that the science allocations had been made. Shared titles in Gobi for the areas
of general science are being considered by the science selectors. Discussion on science budget issues
followed.

Arts and Humanities allocations have been made and a sakai site has been created for keeping track of related
matters.

Social Sciences team leader announced that selectors should continue to send in their orders as soon as
possible. An annual social sciences selectors meeting maybe planned for March 2009.

Report from LRC

Fetzer reported about discussions conducted at the Library Resources Council meeting. No budget give backs
have been scheduled for this year. One-time money has become available. Selectors were urged to contribute
electronic titles to their subject team leaders ASAP to meet the March 10th deadline. E-book purchases through
Gobi are now open. Last copy policies needs to be discussed further. Selectors were urged to send in their
suggestions to Bob/Bonita/Gracemary/Fetzer.

DTS Update

Smulewitz reported that cancellations and renegotiations for serials are ongoing. So far approximately
$292,000 has been saved through this process which was initially planned as part of the give back for this
year. Since the giveback is no longer scheduled for this year, funds have become available for one-time
purchases. A "Periodicals Activity Measurement" pilot project is currently under planning by DTS. Mulcahy
requested selectors to send in their suggestions and comments about the titles in Phase II of the Alexander
Weeding project. He mentioned that eventually selectors will also be asked to look at their individual subject
areas in the Alexander reference, however, since shelf space is still an issue at Alexander, only those books
that could be sent as a last copy to the Annex or withdrawn from the collections would be most useful to sort
out at the present time.

Living in Hard Times

Discussion about a variety of cutback methods that could be helpful during the forthcoming lean budget times
ensued. New ways of thinking about costs, for e.g rethinking the approval plan as a fixed cost; reviewing
subject profiles to cut back titles say from University presses for certain subject areas were discussed.
Mulcahy urged selectors to review their subject profiles on Gobi to analyze and study trends of publishers,
books, etc., so as to be prepared with ideas for reining in collection spending, for e.g. refine presses from
where books are arriving on the approval plan for particular subject areas. Mulcahy also mentioned some newer
models publishers are considering such as planning to sell electronic versions of book chapters separately.